Transit agencies must continually deal with both planned and unplanned events that disrupt transit service (“transit disruptions”). Some exemplary events that disrupt service include construction, social events such as parades or races, and weather emergencies. These disruptions result in changes to regularly scheduled transit service. Depending on its size, it is possible that a single transit disruption can affect multiple routes and schedules.
Public transit agencies must perform many steps whenever there is an interruption to their service (“service interruption”), including keeping track of the details (time and location) of the transit disruption, re-routing vehicles on routes affected by the disruption (such as via detours and/or detour patterns), and updating schedules.
The current approach to handling service interruptions is time consuming and especially difficult if multiple detours are required. Posting a schedule involves converting all stops, patterns, bus times, trips, blocks, etc. into a format that can be used by real time system components. Once a schedule is posted it becomes read-only and changes can only be made in the next “in development” schedule. Each schedule posting process increases database size by creating hundreds of thousands of changes in the database. When changes are required a schedule must be copied, edited, and re-posted. Currently, detour patterns and relocated transit stops cannot be overlaid onto a regular schedule. Schedules need to be removed from the operation of the scheduling system, replaced with alternate schedules, and then reposted when the service interruption has ended. Hence, reposting involves copying a previously posted schedule, making changes and then posting it again.
There is thus a need for a more efficient way to manage transit service when disruptions occur.